QI TV PROGRAM ANIMATION

QI is a television program which is in the same genre as ‘Never Mind The Buzzcocks’ and ‘Have I got News For You’. It is hosted by Steven Fry who is accompanied by two teams of two celebrities.

It is a BBC TV show broadcasting on BBC1 on Friday nights which is repeated on the following Saturday on BBC2. The older series can be seen on ‘Dave’ or purchased on DVD.

The point of the program is the competition between the two teams answering questions, usually in the video format, and basically creating a comical mayhem in the process.

QI is an acronym for ‘Quite Interesting', not to be confused with IQ (Intelligence Quotient) which has little to do with the efforts of the celebrities.

PROBLEMS INCURRED DURING ANIMATION

The problem began at the very start of this animation. It was not that it couldn’t be resolved easily, it was more of an annoyance.The initial concept was feasible and quite simple to produce if the time scale had been a little longer. The complexity of the initial animation model needed to be revised so as to fit the thirty seconds allowed as a running time. A second storyboard, with a simpler animation, had to be produced to fit the limited time scale.The time scale also limited the number of cards that could be ejected by the sphere. The number was dropped from twenty to fourteenThese were the only problems incurred.

This animation was easy to produce, despite its’ running time. Construction of the initial set took the longest, especially the main logo frame at the rear of the set where all the QI cards are ejected. Initially the cards were going to emerge from the large red sphere, which represents the buzzer used by the contestants, in a straight line and move around the room. This would have worked quite well but it was decided that it would be more dramatic if the sphere rotated, with the slot set at an angle, so that the cards emerged on totally different planes.

Once all the cards had emerged from the sphere there was supposed to be a dramatic point in the animation where all the cards exploded in a set sequence, but once this had been animated it went beyond the specified time allotted, therefore the second option was employed, (which can be seen in the animation) this was to have the cards tumbling to the floor.

The final sequence of the card magnification, in my opinion, is too fast. The separate cards are not under the magnifying glass long enough.